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When Prescribing Psychiatric Drugs Becomes Reckless Endangerment

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psychiatric-drugs-side-effectsWhen psychiatrists or doctors prescribe dangerous, potentially life-threatening psychiatric drugs to children without the parent or legal guardian’s consent, they should be charged with reckless endangerment and/or child endangerment because these drugs aredocumented to cause side effects including, but not limited to, suicide, mania, heart problems, stroke, diabetes, death and sudden death.

CCHR is a non-profit, public benefit organization.

The fact that Child Protective Service (CPS) or other government funded agencies can charge parents with “Medical Neglect” for refusing to give their child a dangerous and potentially life-threatening psychiatric drug is an oxymoron.    There is no “medical” or scientific test in existence to prove any child has a “mental disorder” or “mental illness, so how it is medical neglect to refuse to drug a child, where there is no evidence of “medical abnormality”?  Diagnosis is completely and utterly subjective—based solely on a checklist of behaviors. The only medical risk to the child is when they are prescribed psychiatric drugs.

Only once a child is prescribed drugs, such as antipsychotics documented to cause brain shrinkage or antidepressants which can cause delusional thinking, mania and psychosis, this is the actual “illness,” which has been chemically induced.    Psychiatrists openly admit that psychiatric drugs do not “cure” anyone, and that there are no medical tests to confirm any psychiatric diagnosis as a medical condition.  Therefore the term medical neglect must be stricken from any accusations made by the mental health industry, Child Protective Services or any other government agency.

There have been more than 200 international drug regulatory agency warnings that psychiatric drugs can cause dangerous and potentially life-threatening affects. This is now common knowledge and the information is easily available to any doctor or psychiatrist. When a psychiatrist or other mental health practitioner prescribes such drugs and puts the child at risk of being prescribed drugs documented to have severe side effects, in direct opposition to the parent/legal guardian’s wishes, and in disregard of the life and safety of the child, this should be a criminal offense.

The legal definition of Reckless Endangerment is:

Reckless endangerment is a crime consisting of acts that create a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. The accused person isn’t required to intend the resulting or potential harm, but must have acted in a way that showed a disregard for the foreseeable consequences of the actions. The charge may occur in various contexts, such as, among others, domestic cases, car accidents, construction site accidents, testing sites, domestic/child abuse situations,and hospital abuse. State laws and penalties vary, so local laws should be consulted.

The legal definition of Child Endangerment is:

Child Endangerment refers to an act or omission that renders a child to psychological, emotional or physical abuse. Child abuse based on the offense of child endangerment is normally a misdemeanor, but endangerment that results in mental illness or serious physical illness or injury is a felony. The child who is subjected to child endangerment is called an abused child or a neglected child.

Under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) child abuse and neglect means:

  • Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker that results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation;
  • An act or failure to act that presents an imminent risk of serious harm.
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Screening for Mental Health, Inc

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Douglas Jacobs, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, is the Founder and President of Screening for Mental Health. He is a consultant to McNeil Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer.[1] He devised the idea of a national Depression Screening Day, which was held in 1991, funded by a grant from Eli Lilly.

Thousands of sites in hospitals, corporations, and universities around the country provided free depression screening, which involved people answering a modified version of the Zung Self-Rating Scale, a subjective questionnaire lasting less than five minutes. [2] By 1998, more than 60 million prescriptions for antidepressants had been written for 10% of the American population, including half a million children.[3]

Jacobs had strong endorsement from the APA. “The American Psychiatric Association is an original sponsor of National Depression Screening Day, endorsing the idea from its very beginnings in 1991,” said Jacobs.[4] No wonder. Jacobs is also the Chair of the APA work group that formulated its Practice Guideline for the Assessment and Treatment of Patients With Suicidal Behaviors.[5]

He produced a “Model for Suicide Assessment” which was supported by Novartis.[6]

  • In an interview in April 2008 about antidepressants causing sexual dysfunction Jacobs disputes both this and that exercise has been proven as an effective alternative to taking suicide-inducing antidepressants. The real motive behind broad scale mental health screening was clear when he stated that the real problem is that not enough people are taking SSRI antidepressants.[7]
  • A photo taken in honor of “National Depression Screening Day” on October 18, 2001, shows Eli Lilly presenting SMH with a further check for $500,000.[8]
  • In 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported how the group was helping Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to market “Depression in College: Real World, Real Life, Real Issues,” a 90-minute forum designed to introduce students to the antidepressant Effexor (made by Wyeth). “The nation’s 15 million college students are an important market for drug companies looking to build antidepressant sales,” WSJ reported. Wyeth joined with Pfizer (Zoloft) and Eli Lilly (Prozac) to help underwrite the National Depression Screening Day to also take place at campuses. It promptedThe Boston Globe to report “the biggest drug dealer on campus” is Big Pharma.[9]
  • Up to 2008, SMH had received nearly $5 million from pharmaceutical companies. Lilly gave them $124,000 in 2007 and $100,000 in 2008.[10]According to a 2006 article IRS records show the group received $2,823,425 in donations from major pharmaceutical companies and $5,974,217 from the US Department of Health and Human Services.[11]
  • Ten of its psychiatric researchers have been exposed during the past year for failing to disclose millions of dollars in pharmaceutical payments.[12]
  • In 2006, Pharma’s investment in the group paid off. The Department of Defense (DoD) began funding the spuriously called “Military Pathways”—a program whereby veterans and Defense personnel and their families can “self assess” their mental health. On October 8, 2009, SMC announced further funding from the DoD. “Military Pathways is a program of the non-profit Screening for Mental Health([R]) and is fully funded by Force Health Protection and Readiness, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Health Affairs,” SMC’s press release stated.[13]
  • Today, year-round screening is available 24 hours a day and takes less than four minutes to answer 10 questions. The computer analyzes the touch phone responses and the caller is told how depressed he is.[14]
  • Its website today shows how it has branched out to target everyone for screening: Colleges, the Military, Primary Care/Specialty Care Providers, Youth Programs and the Workplace as well as a general screening “For the public.” In 2006 alone, it conducted nearly 600,000 screenings at 12,000 facilities.[15]
  • The free online depression-screening test is copyrighted to Pfizer.[16]

Board members of SMH include,

  • More on Douglas Jacobs: In March 22, 2006, he testified on behalf of McNeil Pharmaceuticals and its stimulant Concerta to the Food and Drug Administration’s Pediatric Advisory Committee investigating stimulants causing cardiovascular effects and the need for a “black box warning.” Jacobs was one of the two “Sponsor” (drug company) presentations.[17] An apologist for Concerta, he said he reviewed the FDA’s studies relating to suicide and tried to claim that the suicide attempts were “proof of lack of response of dose response” and “The majority of cases of suicidal ideation and attempts were not in the severe category and can be explained by multiple alternative explanation” and “do not support a causal link between the suicide events and Concerta.”[18]
  • Concerta and other methylphenidate products carry an FDA warning that they cause “psychiatric events such as visual hallucinations, suicidal ideation, psychotic behavior, as well as aggression or violent behavior.” The FDA ordered drug makers to strengthen warnings about risk of heart irregularities, stroke and these “psychiatric events.”
  • In September 2008, the FDA cited Johnson and Johnson (owner of McNeil) for “false or misleading” data that “overstate[d] the efficacy of Concerta” and omitted key facts. Under its web page, entitled “After School,” it “presents claims about the impact of treatment with Concerta on after school activities. Specifically, the page states: “Adolescence is a time of greater independence and responsibility. For most teens, the after-school hours are filled with plenty of activities, including:
    • sports
    • clubs
    • part-time jobs
    • socializing with friends
    • household chores
    • and, of course, homework

    “ADHD can have an impact on all of these activities, so you want to be sure your teen’s medication is doing its job.”

  • FDA pointed out, “This presentation is misleading because it asserts improvement with Concerta in a broad array of adolescent after school activities, such as athletics, clubs, and performance in part-time jobs, when this has not been demonstrated by substantial evidence.”[19]
  • Leonard Freedberg M.D.: psychiatrist in private practice andfounding partner of Newton-Wellesley Psychiatry in Newton, MA and Harvard Faculty member.[20]
  • Dr. Jefferson Bruce Prince, Harvard Medical School, Consultant for Abbot, AstraZeneca, Cephalon, McNeil Pediatrics, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Ortho-McNeil, Novartis, and Shire; speaker’s bureau for Janssen, Ortho-McNeil, Eli Lilly, and Forest Labs, and has received honoraria from Abbott, Cephalon, Novartis, and Shire and list significant financial interest or other affiliation in GSK, Shire, Organon, Lilly Research Labs, Alza Pharmaceuticals and Celltech.[21]
  • Jerrold F. Rosenbaum, Chief of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital: Consultant or on the Advisory Boards for Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Cyberonics, Eli Lilly, Forest Labs, Organon Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, GSK, Somerset Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Sepracor and Wyeth, Speaker’s bureau for Forest, Janssen, Organon, Eli Lilly, Wyeth and Forest Labs. Significant financial interest or other affiliation with US Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Sanofi, Lichtwer Pharma, Parke-Davis, Janssen Pharmaceutica & Research Fdn, Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc.[22]
  • James Henry Scully, Medical Director and CEO of the APA, with 30% of its funding from pharmaceutical companies.[23]

See Signs of Suicide, part of Screening for Mental Health.

[1] http://www.signsofsuicide.org/corporate_officials.htm.

[2] Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac Backlash, (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2000), pp. 228-229.

[3] Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac Backlash, (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2000), p. 15.

[4] http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/36/14/10.2.full.

[5] http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/mental-behavioral-health/depression/holistic-treatment-special/is-medication-best.

[6] http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/38/4/12.1.full.

[7] http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/mental-behavioral-health/depression/holistic-treatment-special/is-medication-best.

[8] Evelyn Pringle, “Bush’s Mental Illness Screening Squad On the Move,”Scoop, 10 July 2006.

[9] Alex Beam, “”The Biggest Drug Dealer on Campus,” The Boston Globe, Oct. 17. 2002; Paul Glader, “From the Maker of Effexor: Campus Talks on Depression,” Wall Street Journal, 10 Oct. 2002.

[10] http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/2246-the-healthcare-bills-sops-to-the-mental-health-industry;http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/just-say-no-to-the-mothers-act/.

[11] “TeenScreen ‘Under Intense Criticism Nationally’,http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/106/31, 11 Mar. 2006.

[12] http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/2246-the-healthcare-bills-sops-to-the-mental-health-industry.

[13]http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Screening+for+Mental+Health,+Inc.+Awarded+Department+of+Defense…-a0209134793.

[14] Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac Backlash, 228-229.

[15] http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org;http://www.surgistrategies.com/hotnews/mental-health-screening.html.

[16] Evelyn Pringle, “Bush’s Mental Illness Screening Squad On the Move,” Scoop, 10 July 2006.

[17] http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/ac/06/minutes/2006-4210m_Minutes%20PAC%20March%2022%202006.pdf;http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/DOCKETS/ac/06/transcripts/2006-4210t_01_Draft%20-%20Transcript%200322fda.htm.

[18] http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/DOCKETS/ac/06/transcripts/2006-4210t_01_Draft%20-%20Transcript%200322fda.htm.

[19]http://www.pharmcast.com/WarningLetters/Yr2008/Sept2008/JJ0908.htm.

[20] http://www.nwpsych.org/staff.html.

[21] http://www.signsofsuicide.org/corporate_officials.htm.

[22] http://www.signsofsuicide.org/corporate_officials.htm.

[23] http://www.signsofsuicide.org/corporate_officials.htm;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/washington/12psych.html?_r=1.

Say No to Mental Health Screening – Julian Whitaker, M.D.

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In the last four weeks: Have you had trouble sleeping, that is, trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early?  Have you had less energy than you usually do? Has doing even little things made you feel really tired?  Has it often been hard for you to make up your mind or to make decisions?  Have you often had trouble keeping your mind on your schoolwork/work or other things? Have you often felt grouchy or irritable and often in a bad mood, when even little things would make you mad?  Have you gained a lot of weight, more than just a few pounds?  Have you lost weight, more than just a few pounds?

These are a few of the questions being asked to adolescents in a mental health screening program used in schools across the nation.  If a child answers ‘yes’ to these or a set number of other equally inane questions, they’re considered likely to be depressed-or worse.

Loaded Questions

Since when are issues with sleeping, energy, and feeling tired indicative of a mental illness?  What kid-or adult for that matter-hasn’t at one time or another in the last four weeks felt indecisive, unfocused, grouchy, or irritable?  And the questions about weight are just plain nuts.  Adolescents are expected to have growth spurts!

The screening also includes more ominous questions: Have you thought seriously about killing yourself?  Have you tried to kill yourself in the last four weeks?  Have you EVER in your WHOLE LIFE tried to kill yourself or made a suicide attempt?

One thing for certain, if they’d never given thought about suicide, they will now.

Bogus Screening Tests

The push for nationwide mental health screening for schoolchildren began in 2002 during the Bush administration and has been gaining ground ever since.  At the forefront of the movement today is Columbia University’sTeenScreen, which aims to “Expand early detection of mental illness by mainstreaming evidenced-based mental health checkups as a routine procedure in adolescent health care, schools, and other youth-serving settings.”

Evidence based?  There is nothing scientific about it.  According to a study by Dr. David Shaffer, the Columbia psychiatrist who started TeenScreen, the screening tool “…would deliver many who were not at risk for suicide, and that could reduce the acceptability of a school-based prevention program.  [It] would result in 84 non-suicidal teens being referred for further evaluation for every 16 youths correctly identified.”

This means more than four out of five children will walk away falsely labeled as suicidal or mentally ill.  And other screening tests have even higher false-positive rates, up to 94 percent.  Obviously, any instrument this insensitive is worthless-unless you happen to be a drug company waiting in the wings for new customers to start on psychotropic drugs.

Drug Company Collusion

Although TeenScreen insists that this program is financed only by private foundations, individuals, and organizations-and not pharmaceutical companies-there’s been a push by state and federal governments and drug companies to institute mental health screening dating back more than a decade.

Even if there are currently no direct financial ties, Marcia Angell, M.D., Harvard Medical School professor of ethics, believes that programs like TeenScreen are “just a way to put more people on prescription drugs” and increase sales of antidepressants.

This is the worst of all possible worlds.  First, Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and related SSRI antidepressants work no better than placebo.  But even more sinister, rather than decreasing risk of suicide, they actually increase it.  These drugs are required by the FDA to carry a black-box warning label stating this fact. Psychotropic drugs also raise risk of violent behavior.  A large number of the school shootings and other violent crimes that have swept the country in recent years were related to the use of psychiatric drugs.

A Bogus Medical Specialty

This is just another example of what’s wrong with psychiatry.  Psychiatric “diagnoses” are simply clusters of human behavior that shrinks label as disease. Here are some of the “mental disorders” that your child may suffer from, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM-IV): mathematics disorder, reading disorder, disorder of written expression, general anxiety disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, nightmare disorder.

These labels are simply illustrations of the wide range of normal feelings, emotions, and aptitudes.  But, according to psychiatrists, each and every one of them is a disease with one “solution”: a powerful, dangerous, psychiatric drug.

How to Protect Your Children…

You should under no circumstances allow your children to participate in school-based mental health screenings.  Do not be mislead by doublespeak from school boards, psychiatrists, counselors, or teachers.  Despite their veneer of identifying and helping those at risk, mental health screenings are little more than fishing expeditions, casting a broad net and reeling in millions of new psychiatric drug users.

Write a note to your child’s teacher clearly stating that you refuse permission for the child to participate in any type of mental health screening.  Include in the note the admonition that if the child undergoes screening without your knowledge, you will sue.

That’s exactly what the parents of Chelsea Rhoades, a high school student from Indiana, did.  Fifteen-year-old Chelsea was pulled out of class, told to sign a form, and given the TeenScreen assessment.  Next thing she knew, she was told she had obsessive compulsive disorder for cleaning and social anxiety disorder, and she was recommended for further treatment.  The lawsuit claimed that the school had violated the parents’ rights by failing to obtain their consent and for diagnosing their daughter without “due care.”  The parents won.

…And Other Children

Another thing you can do is to urge your congressmen to support H.R. 2218, the Parental Consent Act of 2009.  Introduced in April in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Ron Paul [R-TX], H.R. 2188 would forbid federal funds from being used for any mental health-screening programs without the express, written consent of their parents or legal guardians.  This bill has been referred to the House Education and Labor Committee, so it is likely not on your congressman’s radar at the moment, but it’s still worth bringing to his attention.

Julian Whitaker, MD, is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Emory University Medical School in Atlanta, GA. In 1979, he founded the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, CA, which is now the largest alternative medicine clinic in the U.S. Dr. Whitaker is the author of the monthly newsletter Health & Healing, which has reached more than 3 million households since 1991. He has also written 13 books and is host of the popular health talk radio program, The Dr. Whitaker Show. An outspoken proponent of complementary medicine, Dr. Whitaker is also founder of the nonprofit Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation.

Are all psychiatric drugs too unsafe to take?

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Are all psychiatric drugs too unsafe to take?
Monday, November 24, 2014 by: Peter Breggin
Tags: psychiatric drugs, mental health, withdrawals

(NaturalNews) Psychiatric drugs are more dangerous than you have ever imagined. If you haven’t been prescribed one yet, you are among the lucky few. If you or a loved one are taking psychiatric drugs, there is hope; but you need to understand the dangers and how to minimize the risk.
…
Antipsychotic drugs, including both older and newer ones, cause shrinkage (atrophy) of the brain in many human brain scan studies and in animal autopsy studies. The newer atypicals especially cause a well-documented metabolic syndrome including elevated blood sugar, diabetes, increased cholesterol, obesity and hypertension. They also produce dangerous cardiac arrhythmias and unexplained sudden death, and they significantly reduce longevity. In addition, they cause all the problems of the older drugs, such as Thorazine and Haldol, including tardive dyskinesia, a largely permanent and sometimes disabling and painful movement disorder caused by brain damage and biochemical disruptions.

Risperdal in particular but others as well cause potentially permanent breast enlargement in young boys and girls. The overall risk of harmful long-term effects from antipsychotic drugs exceeds the capacity of this review. Withdrawal from antipsychotic drugs can cause overwhelming emotional and neurological suffering, as well as psychosis in both children and adults, making complete cessation at times very difficult or impossible.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/047784_psychiatric_drugs_mental_health_withdrawals.html#ixzz3YdpSXWWG

The Psychiatric Drugging of Infants and Toddlers

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APRIL 20, 2010

An American Phenomenon
The Psychiatric Drugging of Infants and Toddlers
by EVELYN PRINGLE
The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world for kids with children being medicated at a younger and younger age. Medicaid records in some states show infants less than a year old on drugs for mental disorders.
The use of powerful antipsychotics with privately insured children, aged 2 through 5 in the US, doubled between 1999 and 2007, according to a study of data on more than one million children with private health insurance in the January, 2010, “Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.”
The number of children in this age group diagnosed with bipolar disorder also doubled over the last decade, Reuters reported.
Of antipsychotic-treated children in the 2007 study sample, the most common diagnoses were pervasive developmental disorder or mental retardation (28.2%), ADHD (23.7%), and disruptive behavior disorder (12.9%).
The study reported that fewer than half of drug treated children received a mental health assessment (40.8%), a psychotherapy visit (41.4%), or a visit with a psychiatrist (42.6%) during the year of antipsychotic use.
“Antipsychotics, which are being widely and irresponsibly prescribed for American children–mostly as chemical restraints–are shown to be causing irreparable harm,” warned Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, in a February 26, 2010 InfoMail.
“These drugs have measurable severe hazardous effects on vital biological systems, including: cardiovascular adverse effects that result in shortening lives; metabolic adverse effects that induce diabetes and the metabolic syndrome,” she wrote. “Long-term use of antipsychotics has been shown to result in metabolic syndrome in 40% to 50% of patients.”

Read the rest of this article here:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/04/20/the-psychiatric-drugging-of-infants-and-toddlers/

The Psychiatric Drugging of Toddlers

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Ethical Human Sciences and Services, Vol. 2, No.2, 2000 EDITORIAL
In February 2000, a research study and an editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) aroused the nation about the psychiatric medicating of very young children. The report by Maryland researchers led by Julie Zito examined prescription rates for psychiatric drugs for 2- to 4-year-old toddlers. The researchers found an average threefold increase in prescriptions of stimulant drugs, especially Ritalin® (methylphenidate), for these tiny tots from 1990 to 1995. Prescriptions for Prozac-like antidepressants had also escalated. No results were reported for post-1995, but in the current prodrug environment, prescriptions to toddlers have almost certainly continued to escalate.

Read the rest of this here:

Click to access thepsychiatric.pbreggin.2000.pdf

Drugging Kids in Anticipation of Future Mental Disorders? Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry, Focus on Soaring Antipsychotic Use in Aussie Youths

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http://www.cchrint.org/2015/04/27/drugging-kids-patrick-mcgorry/

By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
April 27, 2015
Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry, who caused an international furor over advocating drugging adolescents withantipsychotics to “prevent” them becoming psychotic, has, again, come under scrutiny for the recent revelation of a whopping 75% increase in Western Australian children on antipsychotics between 2009 and 2013. The Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatryalso reported a 45% increase in the number of atypical antipsychotic prescriptions to children aged 3 to 9 years and a 53% increase in 10 to 14 year olds.
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Australia questions whether Prof. McGorry’s advocacy of antipsychotics influenced the soaring prescription rates, similar to those attributed to shamed Harvard Universitypsychiatrist Joseph Biederman’s work in the United States.
Both psychiatrists conducted research on the antipsychotic Risperdal(risperidone) manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals and both psychiatrists have children or youth research centers that have been funded by Janssen.
• In 2012, risperidone was the most prescribed antipsychotic in Australia for children 3–9 year olds and 10–14 year olds (90.1% and 72.6% of antipsychotic scripts dispensed, respectively).
• Internal J&J records, made public in a court case, showed the company had intended to use its connection with Biederman to increase Risperdal sales.

CCHR Australia has launched a campaign to warn parents about Risperdal (risperidone) risks.
CCHR wrote to the Australian Department of Health asking it to investigate antipsychotic use in children and potential conflicts of interests with those doctors prescribing the drugs. CCHR is hoping to determine the numbers of male children prescribed Risperdal/risperidone that may have developed gynecomastia (male breast growth). In February, a Pennsylvania jury awarded $2.5 million to the family of boy who was prescribed Risperdal for four years to treat autism and developed 46 DD breasts.
• In response to that case, CCHR Australia launched a campaign to warn parents about risperidone risks.
• In clinical trials of 1,885 children and adolescents, gynecomastia was reported in 2.3% of Risperdal-taking patients. Last year, the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacy investigated the histories of 8,285 men with gynecomastia, finding that males who took Risperdal were up to 69% more likely to develop the condition.
• A 2014 study found that of those aged 10-14 prescribed antipsychotics in Australia, 78% were males.
McGorry’s Strong Links to the U.S.
•
Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry caused an international furor over advocating drugging adolescents with antipsychotics to “prevent” them becoming psychotic.
McGorry is a regular speaker at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual conference and is an associate of former APA president Jeffrey Lieberman from Columbia University. In 1997, McGorry established the International Early Psychosis Association (IEPA). In 2014, Vice President was Jeffrey Lieberman.
• IEPA’s conferences received funding from Janssen, AstraZenecca, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and the U.S. psycho-pharma front group National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
• McGorry has been on Advisory Board of the UCLA Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States (CAPPS). “Prodromal” is a term psychiatrists use to arbitrarily describe symptoms that “may precede the onset of a mental illness.” This justifies drugging someone before they’re “disordered.”
• Lieberman engaged McGorry as a consultant to RAISE (Recovery after an Initial Schizophrenia Episode), a U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) multisite study for first episode psychosis (FEP). McGorry is acknowledged in the study for “generously sharing resources developed in Australia to support broad implementation” of treatment for FEP. NIMH awarded $9.9 million for the study with a potential extension of $21.3 million.
•
The Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry reported a 45% increase in the number of atypical antipsychotic prescriptions to children aged 3 to 9 years and a 53% increase in 10 to 14 year olds.
Thomas Insel, head of NIMH, lauds McGorry’s “early intervention” program for “at risk” kids and adults. Insel wants more early intervention that he calls “pre-emptive psychiatry.”
• In 2013 NAMI, which has received tens of millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies, honored McGorry for his “clinical service” to youths. That same year, Janssen gave NAMI $375,000 and J&J provided an additional $130,000.
• Janssen paid U.S. psychiatrists to develop psychosis “treatment guidelines” (recommending Risperdal as a first-line treatment) and was advised to have an advisory panel established that included NAMI representatives. J&J was urged to work with such patient advocacy groups as the NAMI to expand mental health insurance benefits and, thus, gain more of a market for Risperdal.
Potential Use of Youths as Research Guineapigs
McGorry and colleague, psychiatrist Ian Hickie, from the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, are the co-founders of the national headspace: Youth Mental Health Centers in Australia which treat 12-25 year olds. The 2010/11 budget for headspace was more than AUS$19 million with an additional $39 million in 2011/12. Researchers believe that headspace centers are “becoming ‘clinical laboratories’ for applied research.”
CCHR is calling on the federal health department to determine how many youths are prescribed antipsychotics through headspace. Antipsychotics can cause diabetes, pancreatitis, white cell disorders, convulsions and fatal neuroleptic malignant syndrome (tissue life-threatening neurological disorder which includes symptoms such as high fever, stupor, and muscle rigidity), and the investigation should focus on prescriber conflicts of interest, which may be contributing to high rates of children and adolescents being put on risperidone or other antipsychotics.

Welcome to Best Start For Kids.org

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Why this name?  Because King County has a levy proposal by this name that has psychiatric components, one of which is to screen all the children in King County for mental illness.

The rub on mental health screening is that it is a conduit for mental health diagnosis and labeling, all without any objective medical test to show that there is anything wrong with the toddler, child, adolescent’s brain.

This is a government plea for early intervention – at great taxpayer expense, about $392 million over 6 years for their whole program.

And they are looking through a psychiatric lens which turns behavior into illness, without any objective medical testing, while saying they are using the latest brain development theories promoting mental health solutions. These solutions are mostly psychotropic drugs (mind altering drugs) that are rather – addictive – as people can’t seem to get off of them or away from them once started. Sounds like addiction.

While this site is not a medical site, we are not doctors or lawyers, we are concerned citizens. Who live in King County.

Let us know your thoughts about psychiatric drugging of toddlers, pregnant mothers, children aged 1-5 and adolescents.

If you have information on how the Best Start For Kids Levy would impact you, let us know

steve@cchrseattle.org

Thank you,

CCHR Seattle